Toby Harnden was the Daily Telegraph's US Editor, based in Washington DC, from 2006 to 2011. Click here for Toby's website. Follow him on Twitter here @tobyharnden and on Facebook here. He is the author of the bestselling book Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Defining Story Britain's War in Afghanistan.

Let's take out Mecca

Agonising over how he would bring peace and stability to the world, Tom Tancredo, Republican presidential aspirant, comes up with a bright idea – warn the Muslim world that a terrorist strike against America will "be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina".

Colorado Republican Tom Tancredo

Nice one, Tom. And if the IRA ever contemplated a return to violence, maybe we should turn the Vatican into a car park. Animal rights extremists threatening direct action? Send Delta Force in to exterminate Antarctica's penguins. Is it possible for a politician to get closer to the ignorant, bigoted, ugly American stereotype?

Of course, Tancredo – who is running principally on an anti illegal immigration platform – will never get elected. And maybe that knowledge makes him feel liberated enough to say really, really stupid things. But he's an elected congressman whose words will be quoted around the world. He should know better.

His contribution to scholarship on international affairs was delivered to nearly 30 people at the Family Table restaurant in Osceola, Iowa and reported by the Iowapolitics.com website. Just for good measure, they recorded his musings and posted the audio on the site.

Here's the logic. We must deter an attack against America. Therefore drastic measures have to be taken. By threatening to bomb Mecca and Medina, the fanatical jihadists intent on reducing the world to a 9th Century caliphate will be persuaded to give up and, er, embrace Western values. President Tancredo will have called their bluff. Genius.

"If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina," he explained.

"That is the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they would otherwise do. If I am wrong fine, tell me, and I would be happy to do something else. But you had better find a deterrent or you will find an attack. There is no other way around it. There have to be negative consequences for the actions they take. That's the most negative I can think of."